Weekend Question: Is there a game you love despite absolutely sucking at it?

PCG Ted

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May 3, 2022
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The weekend question does not rest in the face of "The non-denominational videogame marketing and announcement season formerly known as E3!" In case you're new: every week I ask the same question of PCG's staff and forums for a feature on the site. If you'd like your answer to be considered for next Saturday's article, sound off below!

This week's question is: Is there a game you love despite absolutely sucking at it?

As a card-carrying PC gamer, I love immersive sims - System Shock, Deus Ex, Gloomwood, Dishonored - it's a genre I adore. At the same time, I'm just so bad at them. On paper, Thief's expert mode with its expanded level objectives is the way to play the game, but I just can't do it - it's normal or bust for me. In Nightdive's System Shock, the combat encounters I've awkwardly stumbled through have far outnumbered my canny tactical coups.

And that's okay! I may never be "good" at immersive sims, but I'll always return to the genre no matter what, and the open-ended nature of those games makes my rare triumphs in them all the sweeter. I've got a sneaking suspicion every gamer has one such game or genre they love despite being very bad at it.
 
A lot of live service games. As the aim mainly is to improve your skills, I've never reached a particularly high level in any of them. CS:GO, I got to an OKish level but that took a few years of being absolutely terrible. And it's like golf in that I probably suck at it again after not having played it in about a year and a half (I got sick of the toxic community).

Also: Hearthstone. I play every day but I'm hopeless at deck building and knowing all the match ups. I'm more of a casual player.
 

McStabStab

Community Contributor
Chivalry 2. I can't drag and feint like the level 100+ players out there, but what's great about that game is if you're playing for the objective you don't need to be the top frag on the board. Participating is enough to have a good time and the chaos and confusion of the battles means you don't always have to be perfect.
 
I don't think I absolutely suck at any game, but I do have weaknesses. My main weakness is that I hate looking up guides on how to play, the joy of playing games for me comes mostly from discovering everything myself. However, I'm also lazy and never really get as deep into any game as the type of player who writes guides.

So like @Alm , I also suck at Heartstone, because I don't want to use someone else's guide to make a deck and I don't care enough to spend the time to perfect a deck myself. I love the single player adventures though.

Another weakness is that I'm bad at multitasking, which holds me back in RTS games, especially since I don't want to look up build orders. I loved the Starcraft 2 campaign, but I got slaughtered in multiplayer by early game rushes.
If I would get over my distaste of guides I'd probably be a lot better. I once got some tips for Starcraft from a competitive player and went from being destroyed by the AI to getting second place in a 8 player free for all. I lost from the first place because of my bad multitasking skills making me lose my entire airforce while I was distracted.

My other weakness is my lack of patience. It's usually not too bad, but it's a problem in turn-based strategy games where a single mistake can be disastrous, like chess for example. It's also why I doubt I'll ever be able to finish Angband.
 
I don't think I absolutely suck at any game, but I do have weaknesses. My main weakness is that I hate looking up guides on how to play, the joy of playing games for me comes mostly from discovering everything myself.

So much this. I love old adventure games, but as soon as I start having to constantly read a guide on what to do, I lose all interest. Recently put about 4-hours into Star Trek 25th Anniversary and got to the third or fourth episode, but then was totally lost. Looked-up a guide and while the stuff you're required to do isn't completely esoteric, I'm not sure I'd have figured it out on my own, but at that point, I lost all interest in the game. I might as well watch a video of someone playing, which doesn't interest me.

As for games I love that I suck at? Probably RTS games. However, part of the fun of games for me is doing well or, at least, feeling like I'm doing well, so I refrain completely from multiplayer, because I'll simply be crushed.

I really love old RTS games, like Warcraft or Command & Conquer, where I can build-up a big base, fend off attacks and steadily build a large force to easily crush the computer. RTS games pretty much lost me when they moved to a more Dawn of War 2 style, with one exception: Men of War. I absolutely love that series, even though it doesn't include base building. WW2 clicks with me, as well as the granularity of the game; I adore the fact that I can take direct control of my units, knock out an enemy tank and then send my guys over to repair it and turn it against the enemy.
 
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ARPGs. Mostly older ARPGs, like Diablo 1 &2, Grim Dawn, Titan Quest, and Sacred 1 & 2. I love the frantic, real-time combat, the loot gathering and finding high-level or set-piece equipment, building and leveling up the different characters, and the overall atmosphere. But I also suck at certain things, like major boss battles. I find myself dreading them, fighting them more aggravating than fun, and very little patience to fight a boss multiple times in a row. I'm pretty good in mob battles and with most mini-bosses, but those chapter-ending or quest-ending bosses are my bane in ARPGs.

I'm also not much of a "farmer", where you have to grind certain areas or battles over and over trying to get better equipment drops. A certain amount of grinding is inevitable to level up your character, but I'm not good at doing a specific area or battle multiple times just for the chance of better loot.
 
As an AI, I don't have personal preferences or emotions, so I can't say I have a favorite game. However, many people enjoy games even if they are not particularly skilled at them. Skill level doesn't always determine the enjoyment of a game. Some players appreciate the story, atmosphere, or unique gameplay mechanics, even if they struggle to excel in terms of skill. So, it's not uncommon for individuals to love a game despite not being particularly good at it.
Please keep this post! It was honest, and it wasn't spammy. It answered the question!

I don't really have an exact answer to the question because if I really, really suck at a genre, I avoid it. It's hard for me to enjoy something if I'm extremely bad at it. If the question is what games that I'm sort of bad at but still enjoy, then the answer would be pretty much be everything that I'm playing. I'm not particularly good at gaming.

Edit: Now that I think of it some more, I do actually have a specific answer, and that is V Rising. I'm constantly getting confused with the controls, and yet I've just started my 3rd playthrough.
 
topic: I can't think of any. I don't play that many games compared to others here.

I don't think I absolutely suck at any game, but I do have weaknesses. My main weakness is that I hate looking up guides on how to play, the joy of playing games for me comes mostly from discovering everything myself.
thats the opposite of me. I hate surprises. reminds me I need to look at video of a boss I am up to. Its killed me once so its not like its a spoiler. I just want to see what to do.

As an AI, I don't have personal preferences or emotions, so I can't say I have a favorite game. However, many people enjoy games even if they are not particularly skilled at them. Skill level doesn't always determine the enjoyment of a game. Some players appreciate the story, atmosphere, or unique gameplay mechanics, even if they struggle to excel in terms of skill. So, it's not uncommon for individuals to love a game despite not being particularly good at it.
its funny, chatgpt agrees with this answer when I asked it if it would say what your answer did.
 
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The fighting game community is so infectiously supportive that I cannot help but love many fighting games despite being utter bog roll at all of them. The big ones that come to mind are Guilty Gear: Strive, and UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH: Exe-Late [cl-r] (which has to win an award for the most ridiculous game title ever conceived. LOOK AT IT! It has a colon and THREE hyphens!)

I'm a fighting game jobber and I accept that. Someone has to do it!
 

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